Jacktight – review

A handy tool for fixing your guitar's output jack.

One of the things that can be frustrating with guitar maintenance is the output jack. When trying to tighten a loose nut it is so easy to spin the jack around, risking damage to the wires connected to your jack. And if they are broken, re-soldering them, and then trying to tighten the nut up again without breaking the connections again. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a tool that could be used to hold a jack in place?

It’s amazing that it’s taken so long for someone to come up with a solution to this problem, but guitar teacher Chris Shahin has finally come up with a solution.

The JackTight is a simple tool that clamps the inside of the jack to the JackTight, stopping it from moving. this allows you to tighten the nut without the jack spinning freely.

Sounds great in theory, but does it actually work?

My Father has been building a guitar with my cousin, and this weekend they were finally up to putting everything together. This was a perfect time to put the JackTight through it’s paces.

We hooked the wires required to the jack and proceeded to install the jack as normal. Before tightening the nut we inserted the JackTight as per this tutorial and, tightened the spool, which makes a rubber sleeve expand as it is pressed up against the tip of the JackTight. Once the JackTight has been tightened enough the jack will not rotate once the nut starts to get firm. Once you have the nut sufficiently tight you just loosen the spool, and slide the Jacktight out.

The JackTight worked perfectly, and the installation was a breeze. My only real concern was the durability of the rubber sleeve. It looks like it would hold up to quite a few repairs, and with the price of the JackTight at $16.99USD it’s not the end of the world if it broke after a few years, and you had to buy another one.

Overall the JackTight is a handy little tool for guitar repairers, luthiers, and DIY hobbyists. It’s not an overly pricey tool, so if you have a few guitars and like to maintain them yourself it’s probably worthwhile buying a JackTight to keep in your toolbox for when you need to fix up an output jack or two.

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